The man froze for a moment, took the item, and stood there staring at Ning Yi'an.
"Please pay," Ning Yi'an snapped out of her pleasant daydream, realizing she had accidentally made a mistake.
The man suddenly grinned, his smile stretching ear to ear.
"Meat..." He abruptly reached out and grabbed Ning Yi'an's arm.
Ning Yi'an was terrified. She now understood her mistake—the rulebook clearly stated, "Do not hand goods to customers before payment." But her instincts had momentarily overridden her memory of the rule.
"Help, save me!" Ning Yi'an turned to look at the senior employee, who cursed under his breath as he approached.
"Rule-breakers deserve death." Despite his grumbling, he pulled out a knife and slashed down, severing the customer's hand. The detached hand still clung tightly to Ning Yi'an's arm, leaving her face ghostly pale.
"Pay up..." Before the senior employee could finish, the door in front of them slammed shut with a loud "Bang!"
Panicked, he raised the knife and began knocking, then pounding on the door. Yet, the flimsy wooden door might as well have been forged from eternal ice—it remained completely unharmed.
Ning Yi'an stood dumbfounded, watching everything unfold. The senior employee suddenly stopped and glanced back at her, his eyes filled with resentment.
According to the boss's rules, failing to collect payment meant a wage deduction! A wage deduction!
The other players had encountered minor issues too, but they had mostly completed their tasks. The only ones who failed were Ning Yi'an and another player from the K Kingdom—a brainless black man named Hanks. The customer he served was so horrifying that Hanks simply threw the goods in their face, naturally receiving no payment. The customer even threatened to file a complaint.
In the K Kingdom's livestream, domestic viewers fell silent while international audiences burst into laughter.
"Look at our country's participants—they follow the rules without question. Now look at the K Kingdom."
"Truly the self-proclaimed world's greatest nation, even their mistakes are uniquely creative."
"That woman still thinks she can cozy up to Fang Zhiyi, huh?"
"Hahaha, hopeless. Absolutely hopeless."
The K Kingdom's higher-ups were livid. Despite paying protection fees and putting on a polite front, these two had still messed up! They even suspected Fang Zhiyi had conspired with the supernatural entities to set them up.
Fortunately, when Fang Zhiyi learned of the incident that evening, he didn’t press the matter. He simply informed the two supernatural couriers assigned to train the newcomers that the losses would be deducted from the two interns' wages.
"But boss, don’t they have no wages?" the store manager asked.
Fang Zhiyi shot him a sidelong glance. "So what if they don’t? Can’t they work extra to make up for it?"
"Oh~!" The supernatural employees had an epiphany.
And so, in the days that followed, Ning Yi'an and the dim-witted Hanks endured far more torment than the others. Players from other kingdoms, once they grasped the rules, resigned themselves to being workhorses. Compared to losing their lives, being exploited wasn’t so bad—some had been exploited even before being chosen for this game. The only difference was the location.
Ning Yi'an and Hanks, however, were paired together. They were assigned the longest delivery routes—any distance deemed too far by others fell to them. And due to their poor performance, their rations were reduced. While other players occasionally enjoyed instant noodles with meat, the two were stuck with plain boiled noodles.
Finally, Hanks snapped. He stood up abruptly and flipped the small table in front of him. "NO! I am a noble lord! How dare you treat me like this? Aren’t you afraid of offending the K Kingdom?" Before becoming a player, he had been a lowly thug who lucked his way through one game. The K Kingdom then "protected" him—meaning they provided shelter, food, and women. For a man who thought only with his lower half, this was paradise. The K Kingdom officials found him easy to maintain, so they kept him around.
But today, he couldn’t take it anymore. How dare these people treat him like this? The aroma of instant noodles from others' meals pushed him over the edge. He lunged to snatch a bowl.
Cheng Xiang instinctively glanced at Fang Zhiyi, who was reviewing accounts with the store manager. Fang Zhiyi merely narrowed his eyes at Hanks before resuming his conversation.
Cheng Xiang understood—he had fully grasped Fang Zhiyi’s character by now.
So he hugged his noodles and stepped aside.
Hanks tussled with the others, knocking over several bowls before finally seizing one. He didn’t notice the owner was from the X Kingdom, a nation long at odds with the K Kingdom. The moment he looked up, a fist the size of a sandbag smashed into his face.
"Damn it! You dare steal from me? Are the rest of you dead? Just letting this trash run wild?"
Once someone struck the first blow, others joined in. These players, though slightly better off than the K Kingdom duo, had been simmering with resentment from endless drudgery. And now a black brute had the audacity to intimidate them? Knowing billions were watching, some cursed and dove into the fray.
Ning Yi'an was petrified. She rushed toward Fang Zhiyi.
"Zhiyi, do something! Hanks is going to get beaten to death!" She stared at Fang Zhiyi, who was flipping through the ledger, her mind racing with calculations.
"Mm." Fang Zhiyi didn’t even look up. His indifference reassured the other players, who focused wholeheartedly on pummeling Hanks. This guy had always lorded his K Kingdom status over them, hurling insults and even harassing female players in private.
"Protest! The Xia Kingdom isn’t instructing Fang Zhiyi to stop them?"
"Protest my ass."
"You paid protection fees for Fang Zhiyi to shield you from supernatural threats, not to mediate player brawls."
"Oh? Fair point."
"Damn, I think we just found a loophole."
"Shh."
Ning Yi'an anxiously watched as Hanks disappeared under the mob, then turned back to Fang Zhiyi. "Zhiyi..."
Before she could speak, Fang Zhiyi abruptly closed the ledger and looked over. "Alright, that’s enough." He wouldn’t let Hanks die—at least not here.
The enraged players didn’t hear him, but the supernatural staff did. They rushed forward, slapping players aside one by one to break up the fight.
Fang Zhiyi walked over to Hanks, who was barely conscious. The man was surprisingly tough—beaten to a pulp yet still hanging on.
"Not dead yet?"
Hanks' eyes were slits as he weakly nodded, mumbling incoherently.
"Old Crook!" A supernatural employee with a crooked neck scurried over. "Boss."
"Keep an eye on him this afternoon. If he’s alive, he works." With that, Fang Zhiyi turned and left.
The room fell silent.
Cheng Xiang could already imagine the flood of online comments—Fang Zhiyi’s reputation would now include "tyrannical capitalist."
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
